13
LENA
The yellow roses were wilting.
Two weeks since Stephanie’s murder, and I still couldn’t walk past the florist shop without stopping.I stood in the staff hallway, police tape stretched across the doorway in bright crime-scene yellow, and watched the petals curl and brown at the edges.No one had watered them.No one had thought to, or maybe no one could bear to go inside.The snapdragons she had been arranging before her death drooped in their vases, their white heads bowed like mourners at a funeral.
Thirty-three years.She had been at this hotel longer than I had been alive.
Through the glass, I could see her work station exactly as she had left it.Secateurs resting on the cutting board.A spool of green ribbon half-unwound.The arrangement she had been building when I had walked past that last morning, all sunshine and optimism, now sagging from neglect.She had waved at me with that ribbon trailing from her fingers.Called out something about sunflowers.
I couldn’t remember her exact words.Already they were fading, and I hated myself for not paying closer attention.
The corridor smelled wrong.Cleaning chemicals layered over copper and decay, traces the hazmat crew hadn’t quite erased.I breathed through my mouth and tried not to think about the fountain, about the way the red had pumped through the jets and filled my lobby with the scent of death.
Someone had killed her.Someone she knew.Someone she had trusted enough to meet alone in that storage room while I sat in a conference room debating the merits of local versus imported flower suppliers.
I had been arguing about hydrangeas while Stephanie was dying.
The guilt sat in my chest like a stone.Heavy and cold and impossible to move.I should have seen something.Should have seen that she was worried, or scared, or meeting someone she shouldn’t have been meeting.But I had been too wrapped up in my own problems, the stalker and the marriage and the man whose scent I could still smell on my skin.
A maintenance worker rounded the corner, saw me standing there, and quickly reversed direction.They were all doing that today.Avoiding the corridor.Avoiding me.As if grief were contagious, or as if they didn’t know what to say to the woman whose hotel had become a crime scene.
“Ms.Hughes?”
I turned.Sandra stood a few feet away, clipboard pressed to her chest, her face pale and uncertain.Her mascara was smudged at the corners.She had been crying.They all had.
“The florist from the agency is here.For the, um.The arrangements.In the lobby.”
Right.The hotel didn’t stop because someone died.Guests still expected fresh flowers.Events still needed centerpieces.The world kept turning whether we wanted it to or not.
“Send her to my office.I’ll be there in five minutes.”
Sandra nodded and retreated down the corridor.
I looked back at the wilting roses one more time.Then I walked away, leaving Stephanie’s garden to wither behind the police tape.
The morning passed in the endless tasks of running a hotel and the careful act of pretending everything was fine.
Michael found me in my office an hour later.
He stood in the doorway, one hand braced against the frame, looking worse than I had ever seen him.His suit was wrinkled in places he would normally never allow.His tie hung loose around his collar, the knot tugged down like he had been pulling at it.Dark circles carved deep crescents beneath his eyes, and his usually immaculate hair fell across his forehead in disarray.
“Can I come in?”
I nodded, and he crossed to the chair across from my desk.Didn’t sit.Just stood there, hands hanging at his sides, staring at the carpet like he couldn’t quite remember how he had ended up here.
“I keep thinking I should have seen something.”His voice cracked on the last word.“She was acting strange this week.Quieter than usual.Maybe she was just tired, or dealing with something personal.”He pressed his palm against his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut.“I should have asked.I should have checked on her.”
“Michael.”I stood, crossed around my desk to him.“This isn’t your fault.”
“Isn’t it?”He looked up, and his eyes were red-rimmed, raw with the kind of grief that couldn’t be hidden.“I’m the general manager.I’m supposed to know what’s happening in this hotel.I’m supposed to protect the people who work here.That’s literally my job, Lena.”
The guilt in his voice matched the guilt in my chest.We were both carrying it, this impossible weight of should-have-known, should-have-seen, should-have-stopped-it.
“She had been here thirty-three years,” he said quietly.“Said your grandmother had excellent taste in flowers.”A ghost of a smile crossed his face, fragile and fleeting.“She said you inherited it.”
“She told me the same thing.Yesterday morning.”